


Kiss me hard before you go

by obbel



Category: Latin American Celebrities RPF, Reggaeton RPF
Genre: 5 Things, Angst, Bisexual Male Character, Character Study, F/M, Internalized Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-07-18 00:36:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19965829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obbel/pseuds/obbel
Summary: Five people J Balvin loved wrong.





	Kiss me hard before you go

**Author's Note:**

> Call this a character study. Title from Lana because I've got that summertime sadness something fierce.

_Mona_

Balvin spent a decade with Mona, and he thinks he’ll spend the rest of his life trying to make that up to her. She tells him that he doesn’t have to, that he doesn’t owe her anything. He learned to listen to her but never managed to take her advice.

He flies her around the world and back on his jet, and he instructs Orli to take photo after photo of her. In all the places they go, he has pictures of her. Before Orli, he took them himself. He has them all saved, every single one. He posts a fair amount, too, thinking that he can make her famous. No, not famous. Admired, adored, worshipped. Loved in the way she deserves, in the way he never could. He tries to make the world see her through his eyes. It’s one of the endless ways he tries to apologize. 

It’s not that he didn’t love her. He did. He loved her so much that he bought a ring and dropped down on one knee and asked her for forever. She said yes, and the bottom fell out of his stomach.

They had everything planned, a house full of dogs and children. Little Osorio Osorios. How perfect that they even had the same last name.

Have.

They still do, even though he’s eschewed his in favor of the one that he made famous. He’d called it an artistic choice. J Balvin flows better than J Osorio. Less syllables. Harder, more aggressive sound. Easier to yell on the outro. Mona had nodded, said yes, I see your point. She didn’t call him out, didn’t say are you sure you’re not just hiding?

He didn’t hide anything from her, not even the things he wanted to hide from himself. He couldn’t if he tried. She knew him so well that she wasn’t even surprised when he broke off their engagement. She saw it coming. He’d been sabotaging their relationship for months, years maybe. He had everything he’d ever wanted, and he threw it away just to prove that he could.

He looks over at her, staring out the window of the plane. The sun shines bright, and she squints against it. He takes a picture, and she turns when she hears the click. She smiles at him.

_Nicky Jam_

Balvin never admitted that he was in love with Nicky. That would have meant acknowledging a part of himself that he didn’t want to deal with at the time. Instead, he wrote bad love songs and changed all the pronouns. He even recorded one of them, just himself with his computer. Actually, he did it twice, the second time with all the As switched back to Os. Then he deleted the file and deleted the recording software and bought a new computer.

He thought about it the next time he saw Nicky, face heating up with guilt and shame. But Nicky didn’t notice. He hugged Balvin close and kissed his cheek and didn’t think twice about it.

_Maluma_

Balvin knew of Maluma for years before he met him. Colombia’s not _that_ big of a country, after all. They crossed paths occasionally, through events and shows and mutual friends. They even made music together. Way back when, they recorded features for an embarrassingly bad song that Balvin hopes has faded into obscurity.

So it’s not that they didn’t like each other, though the media certainly played up that angle. It didn’t help that his dad basically confirmed a blood feud between the two of them in an interview Balvin couldn’t talk him out of giving. But they got along fine. They just didn't have a lot of reason to hang out.

He’s not sure how it started. But suddenly they found themselves in the same place at the same time more often than not. And he found that Juan the person was more agreeable than Maluma the persona. He’s still obnoxious, of course. Still makes stupid jokes at inappropriate moments. Still sometimes refers to himself in the third person. But sometimes he’s unbelievably sexy. And Balvin’s only human. 

So it’s not love at all, just lust. Just pleasure. Except that sometimes, in the quiet moments afterwards, he does things that spark a tender feeling in Balvin’s chest. Sometimes it’s the way he stays where he is, holds Balvin close for a moment before leaving to go clean up. Sometimes it’s the total lack of self consciousness he exhibits, existing naked even when he doesn’t need to be, at ease with himself and his body. Sometimes it’s just the expression on his face, happy, sated, relaxed.

And sometimes when they’re together, no sex at all, just hanging out, riding jet skis or eating dinner or whatever it might be, he’ll look at Balvin like he’s the only person in the world, face open and unguarded and very beautiful. But then Natalia will call, or Val, and Balvin knows he has to nip this thing in the bud before it grows into something dangerous.

_Valentina_

Valentina wants more than he can give her. He knows that, she knows that, and yet. They keep on. He feels unbelievably old-fashioned for calling it a relationship of convenience, but that’s what it is. They look better together than they do apart, not that they’re together all that often anyway.

She’s nothing like Mona. She’s nothing like Alejandra or Ana or anyone else he’s ever been with. She’s sharp everywhere, sharp with her tongue, and her bones, and her mind. Balvin doesn’t know what she sees in him. She’s a million times smarter than he is, and better looking, too. But she keeps him around. And he loves her for that.

_Bad Bunny_

Benito, he’s always Benito in Balvin’s head, loves him. But not more than he loves the _idea_ of him.

They spent so many days together in the studio, recording, making something great, and selfishly, Balvin doesn’t want the magic to die out. So he rations his attention as if it were finite. It’s not fair, Balvin knows it’s not, to make him wait for verses or replies or likes. But Benito looks at him sometimes like he’s got all the answers, and Balvin can’t bring himself to admit that he doesn’t.

It costs him less to buy matching chains than it does to tell Benito the truth. 


End file.
